Feature Story: Augustana tree ring lab brings students into the community

In the summer of 2019, professor Greg King wanted to use his research in dendrochronology—the scientific method of dating tree rings—to begin a project in Camrose. Four months, three research assistants, 16 city blocks and over 2,800 trees later, the Augustana Tree Ring Lab was in full swing.

“I started thinking about how we interact with nature, and realized that a lot of it is through the city,” said professor King. “But the trees in our backyards and on our streets are there for more than just aesthetics. What do we know about them? What kind of benefits do they provide? Those are the questions we wanted to address.”

Professor King, along with his research assistants Julia Kappler, Wei Hua and Carter Rolston, spent the summer measuring every single tree in the Augustana neighbourhood. They recorded things like height, canopy width and trunk dimension and also performed health assessments. From these numbers, they calculated reports and handed them out to homeowners up and down each street, from 44th to 50th. These reports included the benefits of having a tree in your yard, including estimates on air pollution removal (of which the trees in one backyard averaged $1,200 in savings per year), as well as notes on the species of the tree, wildlife habitat and even the impact the tree could have on the energy bill.

“This project was a very rare opportunity for a foreign student who wanted to have an in-depth understanding of the local ecological environment,” said Wei, who had the opportunity to supplement her studies in geographic information science at the Southwest University of Chongqing in China with work at the Augustana Tree Ring Lab.

Along with investigating the trees, the research assistants also had the opportunity to pursue side projects. Julia looked at pollinator diversity in the area by setting up pollinator traps at fruit trees, while Wei looked at something called the “Urban Heat Island Effect” and discovered that areas with a mature urban forest were cooler in temperature than those that did not have them. Carter had always been interested in working with children, so he set out to lead a presentation and workshop with the Discovery Kids Summer Camp, which became one of his favourite parts of the research.

“The summer camp included kids from eight to 12-years old, and I created some activities to introduce them to the idea of an urban forest,” said Carter. “Camrose is such a tight-knit community, and it was nice to engage with individuals and share our expertise...both with kids through the workshop and homeowners through the reports we provided.”

Besides sharing valuable information with individual homeowners, professor King sees this data as being useful to the City of Camrose, who helped fund the lab.

“We can use this data for future city planning,” said King. “Tree rings allow you to see how well certain species of trees are growing with changes to weather, temperature and soil."

King hopes to continue to run the lab as long as people are benefitting from the knowledge it produces. “It’s been great to bring my expertise to the community,” says King, “but even more, we’ve discovered how the university and our research assistants can learn about what the neighbourhood needs as well.”